Farmers asked to help fight algae

FARMERS in Brittany have been asked to join a voluntary scheme to cut their use of pesticides, in a bid to stop thousands of tonnes of seaweed being washed up on the region’s beaches.

Ecology minister Chantal Jouanno has invited suggestions by the end of September from regional agriculture representatives on ways to reduce the level of nitrates making their way into the sea, where the algues vertes form.

Fresh seaweed poses no health risk when it is washed ashore. However, if it is left too long to rot in the sun, it gives off hydrogen sulfide, a colourless gas that smells like rotten eggs and has similar properties to cyanide.

A factory has opened near Binic in the Côtes-d’Armor that will treat 20,000 tonnes of washed-up seaweed a year, as part of a €134m clean-up plan between now and 2015.

The new measures come one year after a horse rider was injured and his horse killed after breathing in the fumes.

Environmental groups in the region say all the effort so far has been on clearing seaweed rather than addressing the issue at source.

The head of Eaux et Rivières de Bretagne, Gilles Huet, said: “The government has taken strong action on health grounds, but has done nothing to prevent the pollution in the first place.”

Agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire praised the region’s farmers for voluntarily cutting their nitrate use, but said further preventative work was essential.